Eat more cookies

Jason, Vince, and Andy traveled with me last week to the 4th International Partners in Flight Conference in McAllen, TX.  We left Stillwater at 6 am and checked in to our hotel in McAllen around 7:30 pm. I drove 13 and 1/2 hours that day. 

McAllen really surprised us.  We expected a sleepy little border town with some influence of birders and other retirees.  What we found was a metro area much bigger than Stillwater.  McAllen itself has more than 100,000 people.  There were malls with Macy’s and Stein Mart, Barnes and Nobles’ and Starbucks’  - and the traffic was heavy.  The entire scene, including the abundant palms, reminded me a lot of the Tampa Bay area.  There was a main highway with “frontage roads” alongside and neon glitz as far as the eye could see.  There were fancy cars and affluent white people. 

Then there were the poor neighborhoods.  They could’ve doubled for any number of towns I’d seen in Mexico on my trip to Veracruz in ‘07.  Every sign was in Spanish in those areas, and the people were presumably all Mexican. So I dubbed this region “Tampexico”.  The one thing it did not resemble in the least was “Texas.”  

The next morning we awoke much earlier than our bodies wanted to after the previous day’s journey, but within minutes of arriving at Santa Ana National Wildlife Refuge, we were invigorated by the sights and sounds of many wonderful “new” birds.  We spent most of the day at Santa Ana, eventually returning to McAllen to take part in the actual meeting by around 2 pm. 

I found a nice willow to serve as a vantage point from which to observe least grebe: 

Andy and Jason couldn’t resist the urge to clown for the camera in “ZZ Top” beards of Spanish moss: 
 

And the birds failed to disappoint.  Here’s the list, in no particular order, with very rough numbers:  

long-billed thrasher – 3
clay-colored robin – 3
northern cardinal – 2
golden-fronted woodpecker – 2 
winter wren – 1
ruby-crowned kinglet – 2
red-winged blackbird ~ 30
blue-gray gnatcatcher – 2
green jay – 7
mourning dove – 2
white-eyed vireo – 4
olive sparrow – 5
great egret – 1
least grebe – 3
american coot ~ 100
carolina wren – 3
common yellowthroat – 1
northern shoveler – 1
belted kingfisher – 1
gadwall – 1
pied-billed grebe – 1
tree swallow – 8
turkey vulture – 42
green-winged teal – 1
blue-winged teal – 1
sora – 1
northern harrier – 1
house wren – 2
black-crested titmouse – 4
greater yellowlegs – 1
ladder-backed woodpecker – 1
buff-bellied hummingbird – 1
house sparrow – 2
orchard oriole – 1
altamira oriole – 2
orange-crowned warbler – 2
cinnamon teal – 2
zone-tailed hawk – 1
black-necked stilt – 18
black vulture – 4
northern mockingbird – 1
osprey – 1 
american kestrel – 1
cooper’s hawk – 2 (on the drive to Santa Ana)
plain chachalaca – 18
european starling – 2
black-and-white warbler – 1
bewick’s wren – 1